That day was some kind of holiday. A good day to be antisocial and dedicate myself to figure out how to complete my current task, which was…

Quest (Reinvent the metric system)

What I actually needed was just proper measurement for alchemy so I could make do with any arbitrary measurement unit and start from there, but I wanted to do things properly. That would also allow me to reuse some of the knowledge from my world.

Anyway, Corgas had asked me to come over for lunch as there was some important matter to discuss, and thus I had just walked inside our prestigious pizzeria restaurant.

I smiled at the pretty waiters and caught Corgas’ attention, who smiled in return and cleaned his hands from the flour.

「Corgas: Allen! This way.」

Corgas said, waving me toward the backroom. I tilted my head toward him while I opened the door.

「Allen: So what did you want to talk abo–」

「「Hi!」」

My question was interrupted.

Lena and Elaida were sitting at the table in the middle of the room. Both were waving at me, smiling enthusiastically.

「Allen: Hello?」

I replied, confused. I gave Corgas a puzzled gaze. What important matter could include both Lena and Elaida?

「Corgas: Sorry. Your friends said it was the only way to have you participate in festivities.」

He said apologetically but in good spirits.

A trap. I rolled my eyes.

「Allen: So… what is this festivity about?」

I didn’t mind festivities as long as they don’t involve, people, dancing or loudly annoying sounds.

I especially despised those where couples show off their “coupleness”. Not jealous at all.

「Lena: Remembrance day!!」

Lena exclaimed, brimming with positivity yet unmarred by the real workings of the world. Such adorable misguided optimism. I too was like that, a long time ago.

「Elaida: Today is the day when people celebrate with their families, relatives or friends…」

Elaida explained.

「Elaida: It became a widespread tradition for the three races after the Heroes of Light defeated the darkness.」

Defeated the darkness. So cliché.

Corgas nodded.

「Corgas: Indeed, which is why I invited you all. In a way, we’re like family… So I wanted us to celebrate together.」

He looked at me and slapped one of his burly hands on my shoulder.

「Corgas: I had invited your friends as well, but they already had plans.」

「Allen: Yes, Namrick said he was going to pay a visit to his parents and Grastel was tagging along. Ellin is staying at her parents’ mansion for a few days, and the dwarf… I don’t know, I didn’t see him this morning.」

Probably wasting himself on alcoholic beverages.

Ellin had stopped by in the morning to administer me the decoction, she had seemed strangely silent today. I could tell there was something gnawing at her. I wondered what it was.

I sat down a the table.

「Elaida: I’m glad you came…」

Elaida said standing up.

「Elaida: I wanted to have you taste some new dishes I derived from your secret recipes.」

She smiled and left the room briefly to bring us the food she had prepared.

The dishes consisted in tagliatelle with a tasty sauce I couldn’t quite place, a spin-off of a quiche lorraine and fried bread with cheese inside.

「Lena: Yum!」

Lena seemed to particularly like the latter.

「Allen: I approve of your cooking. I’m pleased you’ve departed from the local cuisine of drowning everything in oceans of spices.」

I said, nodding appreciatively. I was doting on Elaida so that I could eat good food.

「Corgas: Come on. You always make disgusted faces when mentioning the local cuisine but there are a lot of tasty flavors in this city!」

I shook my head.

「Allen: I agree that there are good foods and ingredients around. But the cooking…」

I leaned toward him and made a grave expression.

「Allen: The cooking is disappointing and uncreative. I’ve even found places where they take two good ingredients and somehow manage to turn them into something that is worse than their sums. How’s that possible?」

「Corgas: The recipes…」

Corgas sighed, pressing his lips in a line.

「Corgas: Much has been lost since the time of the dark ages. All that remains are the stories of the Tallian Republic’s thousand recipes. But it’s all gone now, the few recipes passed down are heavily guarded secrets and the good cooks usually ends up working under nobles or royalty.」

I stared flatly at him.

「Allen: That’s stupid. What’s stopping people from reinventing the flavors? They just have to tone down the spices, then maybe their numbed tongues will finally start feeling again.」

「Corgas: You must be kidding. Discovering new recipes is not something anyone can do. In fact, wars have been fought for recipes.」

「Allen: Now you’re pulling my leg.」

I said, looking for the traces of deception on his face. But Corgas was dead serious.

「Corgas: I assure you it’s all true. The use of Oaths to protect the secret recipes is a common practice…」

He paused a moment as his face clouded.

「Corgas: I still curse my ingenuity for letting that noble steal our pizza so easily…」

This is stupid.

「Allen: This is stupid. They’re just recipes. I could even procedurally generate them. Anyway, can we stop talking about food, I’m starting to get Vargas PTSDs.」

Corgas shrugged, not knowing what to say.

「Elaida: What are you up to these days? I see you always scowling at the air when you stop by.」

Elaida asked, lifting her brows just a fraction.

「Allen: Oh that. I’ve been trying to solve a problem…」

I said, thinking about my alchemical woes.

「Elaida: What kind of problem?」

「Allen: The lack of standard measurements units. Here everyone uses hands, feet, spans, paces and whatever else. All of them fuzzy an inconsistent. This is giving me a headache because I’m doing a potion that requires exact measures, and I need to be able to reproduce it consistently.」

I had two successes while trying with smaller doses of reagents, but with my crappy alchemical apparels, I couldn’t do the proportions right. Thankfully, I had received the first part of this month salary at the end of the week, or I would have been broke.

Stupid expensive reagents.

「Allen: And well, I’m also thinking about my magic training.」

Lena’s eyes sparkled with interest.

「Lena: Magic! Magic! I want to see magic.」

I smirked.

「Allen: Fine then. Behold, my progress at 【Telekinesis】!」

I willed the cup toward my right hand. The cup took flight…

And hit my fingertips just a little off, bouncing outwards instead of toward my open palm.

The cup met its demise.

I stared at where the cup was meant to go, ignoring the disappointed stares of Corgas and Elaida.

Lena burst out laughing.

「Corgas: Speaking of magic… I think it would be better if you refrained from casting spells inside our restaurants, it makes our patrons uncomfortable. And well…」

He waved a hand toward the cup’s corpse.

Just a slight deviation from the proper trajectory. I did well all in all.

Corgas and Elaida started talking about mundane stuff, so I phased out my attention from the chatter between the two and returned to the problem at hand.

I needed reliable measures.

The Fahrenheit scale was too contrived for me, but figuring out Celsius would be a walk in the park. 0°C is when water freezes and 100°C when water boils at sea level.

Besides, I had completely forgotten about which and what Fahrenheit’s arbitrary numbers were meant to be. I suck with arbitrary numbers, they all look the same. Sorry Gabriel, better luck next time.

But then the really hard part were liters, meters, and kilograms. They were all tied together.

I remembered that one kg of water was one liter and that one liter was 1000 cm3.

Haha, so easy.

Too bad I don’t have any fucking reference for any of those measures!

I gritted my teeth in frustration. I could improvise, but it’d feel like losing. There had to be a way to solve the damned equation.

There was, most likely, but I either didn’t know or couldn’t remember it.

「Corgas: Look at you, Lena. You’re growing up!」

Corgas ruffled the child’s hair. Lena raised her hands to prevent further ruffling.

「Lena: Hehe. Lala says I gained another finger’s breadth.」

She said all proud.

Wait.

Height.

I felt the buzzing of server rooms and the clacking of hard disks working in concert inside my head.

I slammed a fist on the table.

「Allen: YES!」

Everyone jumped, startled, and stared at me.

My height! Yes, my motherfucking height!

I knew my exact height, 1.72 meters. Not one millimeter less or more. I had the missing parameter all along!

I knew what I had to do.

「Elaida: Wha–」

「Allen: Thank you, Lena.」

I said standing up and giving a quality head-pat to the confused child. Not that the others were less confused.

「Lena: Huh?」

She looked with puzzlement from Corgas to Elaida, but they were as clueless as her.

It was so obvious. How had the thought escaped my mind all this time?

「Allen: You gave me the missing piece to the problem.」

Lena smiled.

「Lena: I helped uncle Allen solve a problem! Can I skip homework?」

She asked her aunt, who didn't seem in agreement.

「Allen: I must go. Important work awaits me.」

I said theatrically, bumping a fist on my chest and looking at the distance.

「Elaida: But… it’s Remembrance day!」

Everyone looked at me with disappointed faces.

「Allen: Thanks for the meal and the company. Consider the day remembered.」

I said, concluding with one of my award-winning smiles, then I strode off eager to accomplish the quest.

After several attempts, I found a tailor who had cooped up inside his shop and decided, against his better judgement, to answer my incessant knocks.

「Tailor: I’m closed! Stop banging the blasted door!」

The voice complained from behind the door.

「Allen: Are you celebrating with your family?」

The man didn’t answer. Which meant he was brooding all alone and had all the time to listen to my very reasonable requests.

「Allen: Excellent! I’ll give you 20 silver if you help me doing what I have in mind.」

There was a heavy sigh followed by the door unlocking. The tailor scowled at me and invited me inside.

I explained to him what I wanted to do.

「Tailor: I don’t see where you’re going with this.」

The tailor grumbled as he watched while I folded and marked lines on long strips of cloth.

「Tailor: What’s wrong with using hands, inches, and feet? They do the job.」

This was at least the seventh time he had dropped that line.

「Allen: What’s wrong is that everyone’s measures are inconsistent!」

「Tailor: So?」

「Allen: I need a reliable reference. Hell, everyone does. How do you people even trade goods without well-defined measurement units? I bet you’re all getting scammed by people who use smaller units so they can sell less for more.」

「Tailor: Oh? And your measurement is better than ours? You’re getting it from your height! If this is not the definition of arbitrary…」

He scowled while shaking his head.

「Allen: My country had a decent system and I know my exact height. I just need to find how much a centimeter is and I’ll be able to measure weights and liquids with precision.」

The man frowned and scratched his balding head.

「Tailor: What has your height to do with weight and liquids?」

This is basic stuff even a kid would know. But I guess he can be excused by the medieval-like standards of this world.

「Allen: Everything.」

I replied curtly, refocusing my attention to the task. I had no time or will to explain this stuff to a random tailor.

I just needed to adjust my makeshift measuring tape until I managed to make one that matched my height exactly.

「Tailor: You’re wasting my ink…」

I ignored him and kept working.

It took me three hours to achieve perfection. I checked, double checked and triple checked. It was done.

「Allen: Done!」

I said, shaking the measuring tape in my closed fist.

「Tailor: All that work just to make a measuring tape. I think I’ll stick to my proven and tried methods…」

Do what you want old geezer.

I was planning to propose this standard to normalize this country’s measurements. It didn’t matter if anyone kept using inches, paces or whatever, as long as they were clearly defined.

I left the shop and made the next stop at the shop of a craftsman I knew.

He asked me why I wasn’t celebrating the holiday, but I assured him I had already reached my daily social quota, then I asked him if we could work on my project.

I assured him it was for the advancement of humankind. He didn’t look too convinced but he accepted anyway.

「Craftsman: Done.」

He said, handing me the last of the hollow cubes, then he stretched his back and looked at me with his arms crossed.

「Craftsman: Would you care to explain to me how these empty cubes are supposed to contribute to the “advancement of humankind”?」

「Allen: Of course!」

I smiled.

「Allen: These are the basic unit of measurements of volume. The liter, centiliter and milliliter.」

「Craftsman: The what?」

「Allen: Liter. You can use it to measure liquids with precision.」

The man shrugged, clearly oblivious to the importance of this deed.

「Allen: Well, I’ll give you a copy of my measuring tape next time.」

I promised, nodding in approval of the work from the artisan.

「Craftsman: I already have my measuring tapes and rulers. Why are you so worked up over such trivial things, anyway?」

He frowned a moment and continued.

「Craftsman: I mean, I’m glad that you paid me generously but, as a mage, don’t you have more important things to do? Especially on Remembrance day…」

He made a puzzled face.

「Allen: Worry not, this is very important to my alchemical work. It might even be groundbreaking for the whole field…」

Groundbreaking for these people without standards, that is.

I quickly explained to him the importance of this stuff for trade, construction, and engineering.

「Craftsman: I see. But you’re not the first trying to launch a new way to measure things. It never sticks, everyone always ends up doing their own thing…」

He took a deep sigh.

「Craftsman: But I have to admit. If there was just one way to measure things reliably I wouldn’t mind. I happened to lose or damage my measurement tools quite a few times, getting new ones caused me some headaches for the works I had in progress since they weren't exactly the same.」

He said, scratching his scraggly beard.

「Allen: Leave it to me.」

I said confidently and walked off with my prototype liter units. I had one more place to go.

I hummed under the dusky sky.

I knocked at the shop’s door. I had seen the lights behind the windows so I knew the glassmaker was inside.

I had bought some stuff from this guy. His wares were of good quality and the prices fair. But his “measures” were arbitrary lines on the glass with no rhyme or reason. They made no sense at all since the liquid required for each new line were not equivalent.

I had been one step from murdering someone when I recently discovered that little fact.

That was most likely one of the reasons why Merriam was the most acclaimed. But Merriam was the enemy, or so I had decided.

I heard voices inside and some muffled swearing then steps getting louder.

「Glassmaker: Who is it?」

An annoyed voice came from behind the closed door.

「Allen: I have a business proposition.」

I announced.

「Glassmaker: I don’t care! It’s a holiday! We’re closed!」

I heard him stomping away. Wait!

「Allen: Wait! I have a plan to bring down Merriam from his high horse!」

I yelled against the door. The footsteps stopped, then silence.

Did he take the bait? I wondered.

Had I been a glassmaker I wouldn’t have missed the chance to cripple Merriam’s monopoly on alchemical supplies.

After a dozen seconds, the door creaked open. The scowling face of the artisan glared at me.

「Glassmaker: Tell me more.」

There was a hungry glint behind his eyes.

I smiled knowingly, glad to know we were on the same page.